


John Knows

by phipiohsum475



Series: Logically [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Minor John/Mary, Prior Johnlock, Season 3 compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 07:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2613899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phipiohsum475/pseuds/phipiohsum475
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"John knows, logically, the moment he greets James, that he is still in love with this man, despite the fact that John has just married his wife less than two hours ago."</p>
            </blockquote>





	John Knows

**Author's Note:**

> Not betaed nor britpicked. Feel free to (kindly!) point out my errors!

John knows, logically, he should be glad that Sherlock is _not dead_. But the betrayal he feels burrows so much deeper into his soul. That _not dead_ equates to _lying_ , to _abandonment_ , and to _disdain_.

 

-o-

 

John knows, logically, that Sherlock essentially sacrificed himself for John. For Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson, too, but he knows that even without them, Sherlock would have sacrificed himself for John alone. But that he hid from John for three years, that he conspired with Mycroft, his parents, _Molly_ , and the _homeless network_ , but never John, burns an empty hole into his chest. Molly was lovely, yes, but how did Molly rank higher than John in trust? He supposes that he meant less to Sherlock than he’d thought. Perhaps it was better, then, that Molly meant more, since it was her assistance that allowed Sherlock to survive his fall.

 

-o-

 

John knows, logically, this should be the happiest time of his life, that he is getting married and that his best friend has returned. But he has never been so disillusioned in his life. There is no pretense; though they don't talk about it, both John and Mary know that had Sherlock never left, never died, never broken John into a million tiny pieces for her to pick up, cradle, nurture, and glue back together; if Sherlock never left, there would be no John and Mary, no wedding no Dr. and the future Mrs. Watson. And now that Sherlock’s back, how can John possibly begin to reconcile the reconstructed man he is now with the man he's remembering he used to be?

 

The wedding looms, the planning tedious; John’s never been one for handling the minutiae; even when living with Sherlock, Mrs. Hudson-not-their-house-keeper couldn’t handle their lack of housepride, and altered her definition of housekeeping to attend to the details of their lives. And now, these nuptial details; Mary seems skilled enough; as though she were trained in memorizing the tiniest details of flowers and arrangements and the flavor of the cake with the flavor of the icing and the colors of the swirls on the three tiered cake. So John let her and tried to avoid the world crumbling down around him.

And when the fire attempts to consume him, when his death looms in a way he’d forgotten since Sherlock’s fall, he notices that it is Sherlock that saves him, that pulls him from the flames; how Mary stands to the side; frozen in surprise. And this bothers him for days, the illumination that Sherlock is fire and Mary is ice and both are too much and he can’t live without either. He feels aimless, adrift, stuck in between states of gas, liquid and solid.

 

-o-

 

John knows logically, that James Sholto will make it to his wedding. In any other circumstances; if times hadn’t been what they were, this would all be a moot point. If life, if death, if cruel chance hadn’t intervened, it would be he and James in that secluded home in the woods, and there never would have been a Sherlock, nor a Mary. John and James would be together, James caring for him, tempering him. And John passionately enveloping James; and they would be perfect and calm and a silently imploding reaction of all that is good and holy and wonderful in the world.

Everyone who knows him now, save his sister, thinks of John as the emotional one, the kind one, the reasonable one. But compared to Sherlock Holmes, of course they would. Hilter himself might seem reasonable compared the social ineptitude Sherlock embraces. In truth, back when he was truly John Watson, he was the brash one, outspoken, bitterness boiling beneath the surface veneer, he was (and still is, though so terribly overshadowed) the clever one, and had little time for incompetence. To use an awkward analogy, John thinks, James was to John what John was to Sherlock, once upon a time.

And now that he’s broken by Sherlock, Mary knows only a third version of himself, a version he barely recognizes, but he does love her, for taking the shell of what is left. Perhaps, over time, he’d grow into this new alteration of himself, and he’d love her completely for her devotion to him. But for now, he stands in front of the mirror, Sherlock standing by his side, a man he’d loved in the last deviation of himself, who is currently decrying the practicality of various matrimonial traditions.

John knows, in the audience, sits the man who loved him, the _actual_ John Watson, the man he still is inside, but buried under life and death and scars and nightmares, the man who loved him will be sitting there, watching John marry the only person who loves him now, as he is, broken and desperate and someday, he hopes to love her with the same depth of love he had for James, because the sweet woman deserves nothing less.

-o-

John knows, logically, the moment he greets James, that he is still in love with this man, despite the fact that John has just married his wife less than two hours ago. Despite the fact that neither of them are who they were when they first fell in love. James used to be friendly, social, though introverted, kind with a sweet smile, the type of man to let anything roll off him, the type that rarely angered.

James loved working with children; he mentored children when he wasn’t on tour, and they had talked of one day having a child together; adopting or surrogacy; back when Harry was sober.

It was why he often led the newest soldiers, just barely out of adolescence, because he enjoyed guiding them, training them, teaching them how not to just be better soldiers, but better men and women. He taught them respect for each other, respect for the humanity of their enemy. They may have to kill to protect themselves, their countrymen, their allies, but they didn’t have to defile the dignity of the dead.

Then the ambush changed everything. James had tried, god, how James had tried, but the recruits were too green and he was the only experienced solider, and he tried to save them, any of them, even just one of them, at the cost of permanent disfiguration, and still failed. And then came the press, the families, their curses and their attacks and they destroyed him. James collapsed upon himself, and walled himself off from everyone, alone, secluded, shattered. By the time John was able to return to him; once he could take leave, James was whirlpool of self-hatred and solitude, and begged John to not come too close, for fear that he would drown John alongside himself.

-o-

John knows, logically, that everything has changed with Sherlock’s speech. John can no longer deny that he was once loved by this brilliant man, and his heart breaks just a bit further when he realizes that this Sherlock is a different man than the man from three years ago and John’s a different man, and he’s fairly certain that these differences will be more to overcome than possible; they were for he and James. That, and he’s now married. John is tired of being in love and the world shifting out from underneath him. He prays that Mary is safe, that she will be his light on a hill.

If Sherlock had professed his love years ago; well, John supposes that Sherlock might share a category with James, a desperate, craving, insatiable love, torn and shredded apart by circumstance, and they would still be here, at this point, where a broken and torn John Watson marrying a lovely, gentle woman named Mary Morstan, the last in a line of people who still might bother to love him. If he breaks again, he’s certain the pieces will never come back together again.

-o-

John knows, logically, that he can come back from this. He always has. If he can come back from being shot, from the destruction of two careers, from the crippling depression afterwards, he can survive the betrayal of the woman he married. He can’t call her his wife, his wife was a sweet and lovely and understanding person, this woman, this assassin, he doesn’t know her at all. And as he watches Sherlock collapse, internal blood loss threatening his life once again, he can’t stay.

Once he’s nursed Sherlock back to his callous, cold self; John packs himself a bag, and he leaves. He leaves Mary because he doesn’t know who she is, and he leaves Sherlock because they’ve both changed too much in the last three years, and he leaves to determine how he’ll manage this mess that has become his life. And he can only think of one place to go.

He knocks on the door, and James opens it, with surprise. No words are spoken, the duffel on John’s shoulder telling enough. John walks, dropping his luggage in the spare bedroom, and coming back to James in the living room. James watches him, examining him, not with Sherlock’s laser examination, but with tenderness, and then he walks away, into kitchen.

John settles comfortably into a lounge chair, and waits. James returns, minutes later, and hands Jon a cup of tea; made just as he likes it. They sip in silence. When John’s tea is finished, he sets the cup down, and looks at James. He looks at the man’s changes, both in his physical appearance, and the dull sheen that glazes over his bright and brilliant blue eyes and John realizes, just as he has been stripped and broken and rebuilt, so has James, and that maybe now, the whirlpool has ebbed. Perhaps James isn’t afraid of drowning John anymore; maybe they’ve both found dry land. But he worries that James won’t accept him now, will push him away like he did years ago, and John needs to know.

When James sets his cup down, John stands, and walks over to him. He straddles James’ lap, looks into his eyes for rejection, and when he finds none, John buries his nose into James’ neck. James wraps his arms around John, tugging John’s shirt out of his trousers, and slipping his warm, large hands onto John’s back.

The sun sets as they sit there, holding each other, in complete silence. As the dim dusk darkens the sitting room, their breath synchronized, John presses his lips against James’ neck, and then to his jaw line, and waits. And as John hoped, James turns and meets his lips, and they kiss softly, deeply, merging back into one complement, pouring out the regret of years wasted, and rejoining in a sweet, tender, tantalizingly seductive kiss.

James stands, bringing John with him, not breaking the gentle juncture of their lips, John’s legs wrapped around James and they’ve done this a hundred times before and they still haven’t spoken a word to each other since John arrived. And James carefully leads them into his bedroom, and reverently lays John down beneath him. And, like a hundred times before, but also like he’s never seen the man laid out below him, James worships him.

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel, picking up from here, from Sholto's prospective, is in the works.


End file.
